Tom Crochunis of Brown University writes to let us know about an intriguing theatrical production in New York. Anyone who attends the play is hereby invited to send us a brief review.

If any Romanticists out there are lucky enough to be in New York (but not unlucky enough to be Yankees fans--sorry, as a temporarily exuberant Red Sox fan I just had to say it), they should consider attending the current production of Hannah Cowley's The Belle's Strategem, which was just reviewed in The New York Times and Curtain Up.

From everything I hear, this sounds like a very strong production worked on by a sharp dramaturg, Melinda Finberg, and a good director, Davis McCallum. Finberg has edited a collection of plays by women dramatists from Behn to Cowley for Oxford and worked on the Cowley readings that were a part of the First 100 Years series that has taken place over the past year in New York.

Some readers of this blog may have attended the readings of Joanna Baillie's The Election and The Tryal that were given during the period of this year's NASSR conference at Fordham. The series' readings have had the effect of interesting artistic directors in New York in mounting productions of some of these plays (about which they’d previously known little or nothing). The production of The Belle's Strategem is just one example of the payoff of this excellent series, curated by Mallory Catlett and Gwynn MacDonald.

Here’s the information on the show:

THE BELLE'S STRATAGEM
by Hannah Cowley
Directed by Davis McCallum

Remaining Performances:
October 9-11, 15-18 @ 8pm
October 12, 19 @ 3pm
at the West End Theatre in the Church of St. Paul & St. Andrew,
263 West 86th Street, near Broadway
(take the 1, 2, or 9 subway to 86th Street)
$15 General Admission/$12 Students with ID
Purchase tickets at www.Theatermania.com (212) 352-0255